ernation, on the faces of the
new arrivals was patent to every man in the room--most patent and most
unpalatable to the leader of the gang. Staupitz thrust his red, Teutonic
face forward with a mocking look and a mocking voice as he grunted:
"Seems to me you don't relish the job."

Cocardasse nodded at him with perfect affability, and patted his shoulder
with a massive, red hand. "Papa Staupitz," he said, good-humoredly, "you
read me like a book."

"In the largest print," added Passepoil, who generally supplemented any
remark of his comrade with some approving comment of his own.

Staupitz swung round in his chair, upsetting a tankard in his angry
movement, as he glared, all rage, at the strangely assorted pair. "Are
you afraid?" he asked, with guttural contempt.

Cocardasse grinned and showed his large, dog-like teeth. "I am not afraid
of you, Papa Staupitz," he said, quite cheerfully, "nor of any man in
this room, nor of all the men in this room."

Passepoil added, stammering in his speech, blinking his pink eyelids
rapidly: "If any gentleman doubts the point, there is a pleasant bit of
kitchen garden outside where we can adjourn and argue the matter
pleasantly together, as gentlemen should."

Nobody present seemed inclined to pick a quarrel either with the
ebullient Gascon or the hesitating Norman. The six bullies at the table
knew well enough, and savage, masterful AEsop at the window knew well
enough, that the swaggering Gascon was the first fencing-master in Paris,
and that his colleague, the Norman, for all his air of ineffable
timidity, was only second to him in skill with the weapon and readiness
to use it. There was a moment's silence, and then Cocardasse observed:
"I'm afraid of just two men in the world."

"The same with me," added Passepoil, humbly.

Cocardasse resumed his interrupted speech: "And one of them is Louis de
Nevers."

Staupitz's puzzled, angry face travelled round the room, ranging over the
Gascon, the Norman, the Spaniard, the Portuguese, the Biscayan, the
Breton, and the hunchback. "Thunder and weather!" he cried; "is not nine
to one good enough odds for you?"

The others, with the exception of AEsop, who still seemed to read as
peacefully in his book as if he were alone in the room, appeared inclined
to applaud the question of their chief, but Cocardasse was not in the
least impressed by the retort. He replied to Staupitz's query with
another--"Have you never heard of the secret